[sf-lug] Red Hat Linux source code brouhaha?

[aaronco36]

Quoting Rick's mailing-list replay of ~2.5 years back, 'Bye to CentOS Hi 
to Rocky Linux!'[01]:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> Hello LUGers,
>
> The CentOS you knew is going to become a rolling release CentOS 
> Stream and the man behind CentOS is forking to Rocky Linux.
> Details at the following URL:
>
> <https://news.itsfoss.com/rocky-linux-announcement/>

I've worked with Greg Kurtzer in the past, consider him a friend, and know 
he's completely up for this.  Long story.

https://github.com/rocky-linux/rocky
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just over the last week-and-a-half, there has been news originating from 
the Red Hat (RH) blog announcement 'Furthering the evolution of CentOS 
Stream[02] that apparently CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository 
for public RHEL-related source code releases... but yet RH is decidedly 
_not_ publishing public sources of RHEL from git.centos.org

There was a follow-up Software Freedom Conservancy blog article on this 
subject last week by Bradley M. Kuhn entitled 'A Comprehensive Analysis of 
the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business 
Model'[03].
Earlier this very week, Mike McGrath, the same author of the previous RH 
blog announcement above[02], published a [reactive?] response 'Red Hats 
commitment to open source: A response to the git.centos.org changes'[04].

Am somehow still confused even after going over much of the above 
material....
- Is this subject and its follow-up reaction really nothing more than a
   proverbial "tempest in a teapot" ??

- Does IBM-owned RH's decision indicate that _all_ RH source code is now
   effectively placed behind some sort of paywall or even a
   subscribers-only-wall ??

- What does IBM-owned RH's decision really mean for the future of Rocky
   Linux -- which Rick brought-up in the top-quoted section[01] -- as well
   as for other RH-based distros such as Alma Linux[05] and perhaps even
   RH's "community" distro, Fedora Linux[06] ??

- Any educated predictions of whether IBM-owned RH's "Business Model" of
   perhaps effectively placing its source code behind some sort of paywall
   or even a subscribers-only-wall might somehow influence other major
   Linux distros to similarly follow suit ??

And directed mostly to Rick, how might/will IBM-owned RH's source code 
"Business Model"-change affect the content of the pertinent sections of 
your/his excellent and comprehensive RedHat knowledgebase [07], e.g., the 
'RHEL Forks' webpage[08], the 'RHEL ISOs' webpage[09], and the 'RHEL ISOs' 
webpage's 'Bottom-line summary for the impatient' at [10] ??

Further info, background, history, commentary, feedback, opinions,...etc. 
on this subject are most welcome :-)

-A


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REFERENCES
===================================
[01]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2020q4/015103.html 
[02]https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream 
[03]https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/ 
[04]https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hats-commitment-open-source-response-gitcentosorg-changes 
[05]https://almalinux.org/ 
[06]https://fedoraproject.org/ 
[07]http://linuxmafia.com/kb/RedHat/ 
[08]http://linuxmafia.com/faq/RedHat/rhel-forks.html 
[09]http://linuxmafia.com/faq/RedHat/rhel-isos.html 
[10]http://linuxmafia.com/faq/RedHat/rhel-isos.html#summary 
===================================


aaronco36 at sdf.org